


The Library's File on Gallifrey And The Doctor

by erikahk



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Gallifrey, Gen, Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 13:42:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erikahk/pseuds/erikahk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Library has files about any subject in the universe. This is what it says about Gallifrey and the Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Library's File on Gallifrey And The Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much sherry57 for the beta.

Many ages ago there used to be a civilization so mighty and so powerful some legends say that they created time itself. This is of course not true, but it is believed that their origin goes as far back as the creation of the universe. It is unknown whether this is true or not, but it is a fact that the Time Lords were the first born sentient species in the universe. 

They lived on a planet called Gallifrey, also known as The Shining World of the Seven Systems, in the constellation of Kasterborous. For millions and millions of years they prospered. Gallifrey’s most talented pupils would go to the Academy where they would remain learning the secret workings of the universe for several centuries before being considered a fully-fledged Time Lord. 

Time Lords watched the birth of each and every species in the universe. For millennia, they grew until they reached the highest peak of evolution that a civilization can achieve. At this point, they implanted The Laws of Time and enforced it over the universe to maintain order and to make sure history remained unchanged. 

Their mission was to watch over galaxies making sure temporal anomalies didn’t occur, and fixing such anomalies in case they happened. They also kept the roads between universes, assuring safe travel and studying the development of alternate parallel worlds as well as their own. 

It is said that they invented black holes while pursuing research about suns and their aging process and that they not only watched the origins of several solar systems, but that they also had a hand in them, which could be the reason of the birth of the human species, so similar in outward appearance to the Time Lords. They were able to topple Gods, raise up Empires and see them die from old age while Gallifrey itself remained potent. 

Time Lords are considered virtually immortal. Their biological structure evolved to a point in which they could cheat death itself by simply having every cell in their body regenerate to another physical form and gain another life while retaining memories and the same sense of self. They can live dozens of lives, thousands of years and retain the knowledge obtained from each one. For this and other reasons, they are the most intelligent species from creation to this date. Their minds can keep every detail of the inner workings of the universe, evolve, learn, grow and work with such a speed and such an instinct that they are able to see past, present and each possibility of the future at all times. Time flows in their body and they are able to see it and feel it as humans can see and feel the wind. That’s where their name comes from.

It is impossible to talk about the history of the Time Lords without going into the story of one particular member of that society. The Doctor, as he is called, is one of the most famous (or infamous to some) Time Lord that ever lived. His real Gallifreyan name is unknown to all save a very few select people, only one of which that has been confirmed. He was considered a renegade among his own people, with his birth name removed to never be uttered again. The reason for that is a mystery but it is suspected that it was because he had broken their rules far too many times and interfered with lower species, going as far as changing their history, though that most probably isn’t the real reason.

The Doctor never fitted in among his people, the life imposed on him was just too full of rules and dull for him to stay. Eventually he ran away, stole a ship that was going to be decommissioned and set out to travel the universe with him and the Time Lords ignoring each other until crisis hit.

Such crisis eventually came because with all their power and knowledge, Time Lords had one flaw. Pride. They didn’t consider any lower species capable of doing them any harm so they did not feel the need to develop any defensive or offensive methods any further since the fall of their primitive age. And they realized their mistake when they encountered creatures called Daleks. 

The Daleks are devoid of any emotion except hate and they have so much of it that their only mission in life is to destroy everything that isn’t one of them. They have superior numbers, superior weapons and a shielding so powerful that they are almost impossible to be destroyed. 

Suddenly, Gallifrey saw itself in the forgings of a war called The Last Great Time War, a battle over the control of time and the entire universe. A war over all of creation itself. Even though the Dalek intellect isn’t as advanced as the Time Lord’s, the battle between both extended beyond what Gallifrey could bear. 

Entire planets were swallowed by it, civilizations wiped from existence in a single instant as a consequence of the extensive use of temporal warfare. The fate of battles was constantly changed by both sides unable to accept any kind of defeat. Entire armies died, countless deaths, over and over again, lost in bloodlust and insanity with time bringing them back only so they could die another death. 

In the heart of the war, Gallifrey resorted to desperate measures, bringing Rassilon, the father of modern Gallifreyan society, back to life to become their Lord President and lead them into battle. The war hardened the Time Lords and some of them changed to a point it was nearly impossible to recognize the great civilization that had once existed. 

This greatly hurt the Doctor that saw his own people change into something he had thought had been dead since the fall of their primordial era, a mere shadow of the great civilization they had once been. Recognizing that the conflict between his people and the Daleks was too big to be ignored, the Doctor got involved and fought in the front lines.

At its highest peak, what was born during the war made it impossible for anything to live, not even its belligerents. Weapon after weapon, battle after battle, altercation after altercation, time itself consuming the edges of the war, the Doctor sadly realized no one would be able to survive it and that the universe would be consumed by its destructive power until there was nothing left.

The Time Lords also realized this and Rassilon came up with a plan to make it so Gallifrey would live beyond its last day. He proposed the Ultimate Sanction to the Time Lord High Council in which he would destroy the whole fabric of time in order to destroy the Daleks while the Time Lords evolved to the ultimate form of life and ascended into beings of pure energy, free of physical bodies and the pain of sharing the universe with lower species, to become the only life form in existence. They would destroy the universe in order to see it rid of Daleks and everything else that was below Gallifrey. 

Upon learning this plan, knowing what Rassilon would pursue to the End of Time, the Doctor saw no other choice but to time-lock the war so nothing would be able to get in or out of it, not even using time travel, and then, going against everything he believes in, committed genocide in order to save the universe and destroy every Dalek in existence. This also resulted in the destruction of Gallifrey and every member from his own people, all of them retroactively wiped from history in the temporal shift that it created. 

The Doctor still remains the sole survivor of The Last Great Time War, the only member of his species in existence, carrying the trauma of having destroyed his own people and the self-imposed burden of pursuing and defending the mission that had once been the responsibility of an entire civilization: the protection of the whole wide universe.

For a long time he punished himself by traveling alone, until it got to a point in which he was too lonely and too fragile and once again started taking companions to share his travels with. Eventually, this also became part of his self-reprimand for the friends he usually acquires do not live as long as he does and end up always leaving him alone, either by dying or by simply walking away to resume their previous lives. This always results in the Doctor having his hearts broken because his old soft hearts are too bruised and too traumatized to be hardened against the pain it causes. 

/end file


End file.
